With multiple vendors and platforms in play, a growing number of devices connecting to the network and the need to manage it all – it’s easy to see why organizations can feel overwhelmed, unsure of the first step to take towards network management and security.

When a new threat is uncovered, an artificially intelligent system is able to apply its newly-found knowledge to all other systems in its network, launching investigations to find out whether other machines exhibit evidence of the threat or threat type.

By replacing traditional IP addresses with cryptographic identities (CID), comprehensive security is enabled at the device level, rather than reinforcing a vulnerable perimeter with outdated and largely ineffective measures.

Next generation firewalls had a good ten year run and are still good for the network perimeter. But when it comes to protecting the inside of the enterprise perimeter, they lack significant capabilities.

User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) platforms are very promising. In the near future, expect to see user behavior analytics platforms integrate more directly with infrastructure and with automated response.

Encrypted network traffic improves confidentiality and message integrity, but it also puts organizations at risk. This is because hackers can leverage encryption to conceal their exploits from security devices that do not inspect SSL traffic. Attackers are wising up and taking advantage of this gap in corporate defenses.

Software-defined security changes the game for the CISO and their teams. Security can now move to being an enabler for enterprises that are taking advantage of the business value offered by cloud services and infrastructure, without sacrificing security or compliance.

Your security team is getting alerts from internal sensors, threat intelligence from multiple sources, and potential indicators of attack or compromise from your SIEM. Relying on these human filters to decode, deduce, and decide what is relevant takes valuable time and can result in long delays between attack, detection, and containment.

The newly released Encrypt the Web report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) illustrates that even large, well-known enterprises are susceptible to lapses in properly securing network communications.

Using a VPN to secure your car is no different than using one to safeguard the connections initiated from your smartphone or tablet. Any device, as small as an iPhone or as large as an SUV, should be equipped with the best security features before remotely accessing a corporate network.

Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning and it was conclusively proven that the layered onion model was proven to fail in several circumstances commonly deployed and used in today’s enterprise. That would sure explain much of the failure we’ve seen across enterprise breaches, wouldn’t it?

Given the expanding threat landscape for the SMB and the increased demand for affordable IT security tools, here are five valuable tips for IT pros that help shed light on managing enterprise security on a budget.